UN General Assembly rejects Saudi Arabia’s entry into the Human Rights Council

Saudi Arabia failed to enter the UN Human Rights Council on Wednesday, a rejection by the UN General Assembly welcomed by human rights defenders who also had African countries in their crosshairs. who were elected.

This UN body supposed to defend human rights and public freedoms in the world is often the site of controversies and tensions between democratic and authoritarian regimes which sit side by side there.

“Serious human rights violations”

There are 47 places on the Human Rights Council which sits in Geneva.

Eighteen places were to be filled for the 2025-2027 financial year, distributed by region: for “Asia-Pacific”the five places were won by Cyprus, Marshall Islands, Qatar, South Korea and Thailand. Saudi Arabia was the 6th candidate and failed in the vote by all member states at the UN General Assembly in New York.

“This vote counts. For too long the regime (of Crown Prince) Mohammed Ben Salman has acted with complete impunity to perpetrate serious human rights abuses, knowing well that its international partners are looking elsewhere.thundered in a press release the NGOs Reprieve and European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR). They counted 214 capital executions in 2024.

“Least deserving candidate”

In Switzerland, the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) group welcomed the fact that “when given a real choice, states vote against the least deserving candidate, refusing to empower powerful actors who violate basic human rights”.

In the group of “Africa”there were five candidates for five seats who were therefore all elected despite protests for weeks from local and international human rights organizations, such as the influential American Human Rights Watch: Benin, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Gambia and Kenya.

Pour “Latin America and the Caribbean”Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico were elected and for “Eastern Western Europe and other states”Czechia, North Macedonia, Iceland, Spain and Switzerland were elected.